How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed

Ray Kurzweil, the bold futurist and author of the New York Times best seller The Singularity Is Near, is arguably today’s most influential technological visionary. A pioneering inventor and theorist, he has explored for decades how artificial intelligence can enrich and expand human capabilities. Now, in his much-anticipated How to Create a Mind, he takes this exploration to the next step: reverse-engineering the brain to understand precisely how it works, then applying that knowledge to create vastly intelligent machines.

Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body's Most Underrated Organ

Our gut is almost as important to us as our brain, yet we know very little about how it works. Gut: The Inside Story is an entertaining, informative tour of the digestive system from the moment we raise a tasty morsel to our lips until the moment our body surrenders the remnants to the toilet bowl. No topic is too lowly for the author's wonder and admiration, from the careful choreography of breaking wind to the precise internal communication required for a cleansing vomit.

Into the Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon’s Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the Secrets of the Heart

Extraordinary things happen when we harness the power of both the brain and the heart. Growing up in the high desert of California, Jim Doty was poor, living with an alcoholic father and a mother chronically depressed and paralyzed by a stroke. Today he is the director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford University, of which the Dalai Lama is a founding benefactor.

The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything

The Element shows the vital need to enhance creativity and innovation by thinking differently about human resources and imagination. It is an essential strategy for transforming education, business, and communities to meet the challenges of living and succeeding in the 21st century.

The Mind Club: Who Thinks, What Feels, and Why It Matters

Nothing seems more real than the minds of other people. When you consider what your boss is thinking or whether your spouse is happy, you are admitting them into the "mind club". It's easy to assume other humans can think and feel, but what about a cow, a computer, a corporation? What kinds of minds do they have? Daniel M. Wegner and Kurt Gray are award-winning psychologists who have discovered that minds - while incredibly important - are a matter of perception.

Lesser Beasts: A Snout-to-Tail History of the Humble Pig

As historian Mark Essig reveals in Lesser Beasts, swine have such a bad reputation for precisely the same reasons they are so valuable as a source of food: they are intelligent, self-sufficient, and omnivorous. What's more, he argues, we ignore our historic partnership with these astonishing animals at our peril.

Food: A Cultural Culinary History

Eating is an indispensable human activity. As a result, whether we realize it or not, the drive to obtain food has been a major catalyst across all of history, from prehistoric times to the present. Epicure Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin said it best: "Gastronomy governs the whole life of man."

A Brief History of Misogyny: the World's Oldest Prejudice: Brief Histories

In this compelling, powerful book, highly respected writer and commentator Jack Holland sets out to answer a daunting question: How do you explain the oppression and brutalization of half the world's population by the other half, throughout history? The result takes the listener on an eye-opening journey through centuries, continents, and civilizations as it looks at both historical and contemporary attitudes to women.

American Pain: How a Young Felon and His Ring of Doctors Unleashed America's Deadliest Drug Epidemic

American Pain chronicles the rise and fall of this game-changing pill mill and how it helped tip the nation into its current opioid crisis. The narrative, which swings back and forth between Florida and Kentucky, is populated by a diverse cast of characters.

The Tales of Max Carrados

Exclusive audio collection. Eleven Max Carrados stories - narrated by national treasure Stephen Fry. Max Carrados featured in a series of mystery stories that first appeared in 1914. Carrados featured alongside Sherlock Holmes in The Strand magazine, in which they both had top billing. The character often boasted how being blind meant his other senses were heightened. This exclusive audio collection features 11 Max Carrados stories.

Writing Creative Nonfiction

Bringing together the imaginative strategies of fiction storytelling and new ways of narrating true, real-life events, creative nonfiction is the fastest-growing part of the creative writing world. It's a cutting-edge genre that's reshaping how we write (and read) everything from biographies and memoirs to blogs and public speaking scripts to personal essays and magazine articles.

The Ghost Army of World War II: How One Top-Secret Unit Deceived the Enemy with Inflatable Tanks, Sound Effects, and Other Audacious Fakery

In the summer of 1944, a handpicked group of young GIs - including such future luminaries as Bill Blass, Ellsworth Kelly, Arthur Singer, Victor Dowd, Art Kane, and Jack Masey - landed in France to conduct a secret mission. Armed with truckloads of inflatable tanks, a massive collection of sound-effects records, and more than a few tricks up their sleeves, their job was to create a traveling road show of deception on the battlefields of Europe, with the German Army as their audience.

Doing Good Better: How Effective Altruism Can Help You Make a Difference

Most of us want to make a difference. We donate our time and money to charities and causes we deem worthy, choose careers we consider meaningful, and patronize businesses and buy products we believe make the world a better place. Unfortunately we often base these decisions on assumptions and emotions rather than facts. As a result even our best intentions often lead to ineffective - and sometimes downright harmful - outcomes. How can we do better?

Long Story Short: The Only Storytelling Guide You'll Ever Need

Did you ever wish you could tell a story that leaves others spellbound? Storytelling teacher and champion Margot Leitman will show you how! With a fun, irreverent, and infographic approach, this guide breaks a story into concrete components with ways to improve content, structure, emotional impact, and delivery through personal anecdotes, relatable examples, and practical exercises.

The Art of Living

With this audiobook, the listener will become a student of Bob Proctor as he teaches lessons and presents jewels of wisdom on living an extraordinary life. Listeners will marvel at Proctor's miraculous way of disseminating his decades of business wisdom into easy-to-understand parables and learn lessons on what our creative faculties are and how to use them, why we need to unlearn most of the false beliefs we've been indoctrinated with our whole lives, and how our intellects have the ability not only to put us ahead in life but also to be our biggest detriment.

Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?

De Waal reviews the rise and fall of the mechanistic view of animals and opens our minds to the idea that animal minds are far more intricate and complex than we have assumed. De Waal's landmark work will convince you to rethink everything you thought you knew about animal - and human - intelligence.

From actor Cary Elwes, who played the iconic role of Westley in The Princess Bride, comes a first-person account and behind-the-scenes look at the making of the cult classic film filled with never-before-told stories, exclusive photographs, and interviews with costars Robin Wright, Wallace Shawn, Billy Crystal, Christopher Guest, and Mandy Patinkin, as well as author and screenwriter William Goldman, producer Norman Lear, and director Rob Reiner.

Washington's Immortals: The Untold Story of an Elite Regiment Who Changed the Course of the Revolution

In August 1776, a little over a month after the Continental Congress had formally declared independence from Britain, the revolution was on the verge of a sudden and disastrous end. General George Washington found his troops outmanned and outmaneuvered at the Battle of Brooklyn, and it looked like there was no escape. But thanks to a series of desperate rear-guard attacks by a single heroic regiment, famously known as the Immortal 400, Washington was able to evacuate his men, and the nascent Continental Army lived to fight another day.

History Reader says:"Groundbreaking masterpiece on American Revolution"

The Great Zoo of China

It is a secret the Chinese government has been keeping for 40 years. They have proven the existence of dragons - a landmark discovery no one could ever believe is real and a scientific revelation that will amaze the world. Now the Chinese are ready to unveil their astonishing findings within the greatest zoo ever constructed. A small group of VIPs and journalists has been brought to the zoo deep within China to see these fabulous creatures for the first time.

Cure: A Journey into the Science of Mind over Body

In Cure, award-winning science writer Jo Marchant travels the world to meet the physicians, patients and researchers on the cutting edge of this new world of medicine. We learn how meditation protects against depression and dementia, how social connections increase life expectancy and how patients who feel cared for recover from surgery faster. We meet Iraq war veterans who are using a virtual arctic world to treat their burns and children whose ADHD is kept under control with half the normal dose of medication.

TimothyT says:"A brilliantly outlined Classic in the field of Mind Body Medicine"

The Things They Carried

Hailed by The New York Times as "a marvel of storytelling", The Things They Carried’s portrayal of the boots-on-the-ground experience of soldiers in the Vietnam War is a landmark in war writing. Now, three-time Emmy Award winner-Bryan Cranston, star of the hit TV series Breaking Bad, delivers an electrifying performance that walks the book’s hallucinatory line between reality and fiction and highlights the emotional power of the spoken word.

The God's Eye View

NSA director Theodore Anders has a simple goal: collect every phone call, email, and keystroke tapped on the Internet. He knows unlimited surveillance is the only way to keep America safe. Evelyn Gallagher doesn't care much about any of that. She just wants to keep her head down and manage the NSA's camera network and facial recognition program so she can afford private school for her deaf son, Dash.

Gateway

When prospector Bob Broadhead went out to Gateway on the Heechee spacecraft, he decided he would know which was the right mission to make him his fortune. Three missions later, now famous and permanently rich, Robinette Broadhead has to face what happened to him and what he is...in a journey into himself as perilous and even more horrifying than the nightmare trip through the interstellar void that he drove himself to take!

Six Degrees of Assassination: An Audible Drama

On a sullen, cloudy July day ten years since 7/7, the happy, confident and optimistic British Prime Minister is visiting a charity in East London. It’s just two months after the general election which saw John Campbell's government returned to power with a clear majority, the economy is on the mend and the coalition is fast becoming a bad memory. Suddenly, a man appears out of the crowd and shoots him three times in the chest.

Publisher's Summary

Over the past few decades, a handful of scientists have been racing to explain a disturbing aspect of our universe: only four percent of it consists of the matter that makes up you, me, our books, and every star and planet. The rest is completely unknown.

Richard Panek tells the dramatic story of the quest to find this “dark” matter and an even more bizarre substance called “dark energy”. This is perhaps the greatest mystery in all of science, and solving it will bring fame, funding, and certainly a Nobel Prize. Based on in-depth reporting and interviews with the major players—from Berkeley’s feisty, excitable Saul Perlmutter and Harvard’s witty but exacting Robert Kirshner to the doyenne of astronomy, Vera Rubin—the book offers an intimate portrait of the bitter rivalries and fruitful collaborations, the eureka moments and blind alleys, that have fueled their search, redefined science, and reinvented the universe.

The stakes couldn’t be higher. Our view of the cosmos is profoundly wrong, and Copernicus was only the beginning: not just Earth, but all common matter is a marginal part of existence. Panek’s fast-paced narrative, filled with original reporting and behind-the-scenes details, brings this epic story to life for the very first time.

What the Critics Say

“It’s the biggest mystery of all: why is the universe expanding at an accelerated rate? At its heart is a search for what forces and particles make up reality. It baffled Einstein, and it now obsesses a cadre of fascinating cosmologists. By brilliantly capturing their passions and pursuits, Richard Panek has made this cosmic quest exciting and understandable.” (Walter Isaacson, New York Times best-selling author of Einstein: His Life and Universe)

“A superior account of how astronomers discovered that they knew almost nothing about 96 percent of the universe…. Panek delivers vivid sketches of scientists, lucid explanations of their work, and revealing descriptions of the often stormy rivalry that led to this scientific revolution, usually a media cliché, but not in this case.” (Kirkus Reviews)

“Science journalist Panek offers an insider’s view of the quest for what could be the ultimate revelation.... This lively story of big personalities, intellectual competitiveness, and ravenous curiosity is as entertaining as it is illuminating.” (Publishers Weekly)

This is a pleasant story of some of the characters and events in astrophysics over the last few decades with a focus on recent data showing the expansion of the universe is unexpectedly accelerating. The characters presented are pleasure to listen to and the level of technical detail is nice for a general audience without being boring to a technical reader. The narration is really good for this kind of material.

What this book is not, 1) a text book or 2) detailed explanation of Astrophysics.
What this is a history of Astronomy for the last 40 years.
Richard Panek is a journalist and this book is a detailed account in the personalities in Astronomy for the last 40 years that lead to the ideas that we can see only 4% of the Universe and how we see inflation.
Given that i've been out of school for 30 years my math can't follow the detailed cosmology text book but this book provides a clear reasoning why we believe the universe is accelerating and the problems that provides for theatrical physicists. If you love Astrophysics/Cosmology books give this a read.

I really enjoyed this book. I listened to it twice back-to-back. The content is highly engaging, the pacing is brisk, and the narration was very expressive. A great listen that is as informative as it is enjoyable to listen to. If you are interested in the big bang, the expanding universe, dark matter, dark energy, the cosmic microwave background radiation, cosmic structures and superstructures, then this book is a good fit. It explains those topics along with the people, groups, and collaborations that drove important research on those and more topics in the last 100 years.

This book brought me up to speed with the current state of the art in physics and astronomy. This was the first science book I had read in years and it was a great choice. He explains the science such that even I could follow it. I warn you, if you are new to reading science books, this one will inspire you into reading many, many other science books.

I expected a good, well organized primer on theories surrounding dark matter. By "Race to Discover the Rest of Reality" I thought the author would describe bleeding edge research into higher theoretical physics. I was surprised to find that he mean't this quite literally. He focuses mainly on the competition between groups of scientists and universities to be the first to publish on various topics.

We are given smatterings of physics theory with loads of academic esoterica. There are lengthy sections describing how this or that scientist came to feel their toes had been stepped on or how someone had stabbed them in the back by publishing before agreed upon dates. Perhaps I simply misunderstood what the book was about to but these sort of things don't interest me at all. Perhaps an anecdote here or there might be interesting but this goes way beyond that.

If you are hoping to read about physics or the cosmos I recommend one of the books by Brian Greene. They explore cosmic theory in great detail and in a highly engaging manner, without overwhelming you with math or the kind of personal gripes that are described here.

OK -- I'm a science nerd, and I was expecting a science nerd book: Another book about cosmology, quantum mechanics, string theory and whatnot to bring me to a closer understanding of things that you can't really understand without the math. (Which I don't have. Not a math nerd. Sigh.)

Instead, I got a very engaging story about scientists poking at the edges of reality, with actual plot, intrigue, politics, and drama. This was the life I had envisioned for myself in high school. After hearing this book, how I wish I hadn't switched gears! I coulda been in this story. I coulda been a contenda ...

I think some layman's background in the topics (astronomy and particle physics) would be helpful, but you don't need to be a scientist to enjoy this book. And despite the fact that this is not really a science book, you will come away a pretty good understanding of what it's all about. Although I knew much of the science here, this book put things into perspective and gave me a deeper understanding of it all. A view from 30,000 feet is sometime what you need to have it all make sense.

I didn't give it five stars because this is not Stephen King, after all. But it's a really good listen.

The narrator deserves a lot of credit for making this a really good listen. He has a lively and energetic style, and I could hardly believe he had not lived the story.

I downloaded this with a little hesitation, being fairly familiar with dark matter and dark energy and their effects upon the expanding universe. I had some trepidation that this would simply rehash information I already had. Much to my delight, the book really dug into the politics of science and the scientists involved in the race to discovery. Sure, many of us know about Gamov, Wilson, Penzias, COBE, hyper novae as standard candles, etc. What made this a great read/listen was learning about the two teams racing to discover those hyper novae, who and how the teams were assembled, the different approaches, and such. Contrary to George's review (and he has every right to have wanted a different perspective), I enjoyed this book thoroughly because of its look at the human and political side of science.

Sometimes I get stuck on an author and compare everything else I read in that genre to that author. Such is the case with Michio Kaku. I read Parallel Universes when it first came out and was blown away. As I wrote in my review, most of the book was way over my head but somehow I got a feel and glimmer of understanding for even those parts of the book that were. Kaku has a genius that makes the almost incomprehensible concepts in physics sometimes seem simple and obvious. The 4 Percent Universe did not leave me feeling that way.

I would not say that Panek was unclear in the 4 Percent Universe. Actually, I had the feel that it was more a flat lesson in the history of science. It was a book that just had fewer revelations for me. With Kaku there were just so many "Ah Ha" moments. Hopefully, without sounding too hokey, when reading Kaku, there were moments of what felt like transcendence, an altered state of consciousness. Pretty high bar to set huh? Yeah, I know. Sorry, Richard Panek. You were just fine... just not Michio Kaku.

The book is certainly detailed, of every blind alley and dead end along the search for dark energy and dark matter. I generally love physics/astronomy books but this one was like waiting for the punch lines that never seem to arrive.

Somehow, I kept listening (and listening, and listening) for a serious breakthrough in the search or a compelling new slant on the science. These never quite happen.

But.... I understand it's different strokes for different folks, so I will offer this: If you enjoy the history of a quasi-wild-goose chase, this book has all the scientific process details you would ever want. The book also gives you a nice profile of the various scientists, and of the

Glad this one was "free" with my member-credit.

What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?

As narrators go, Ray Porter is better than many narrators, but to my ear he always (even in other audiobooks) has sort of a slightly disgusted / sarcastic undertone to his vocal inflection.